Houston Journal; In the Dollar Dances, Sadness Leads

Jessica is 21 years old and lives with her 5-year-old daughter on the east side of downtown, in a neighborhood where life is lived in Spanish.

During the week, Jessica, who would identify herself only by first name, wears an orange and white fast-food restaurant uniform and sells tacos and soda. On Friday and Saturday nights, she wears a black mini-dress with a rhinestone belt and sits with her friends at a table at the edge of a local dance floor.

Young men come over and ask her to dance. When the song ends, they give her a dollar.

''I don't like them, but I need the money,'' said Jessica, who is young, curvaceous and popular and who earns up to $50 a night. ''It helps me pay the rent.''

In Houston, there are hundreds of young dollar dancers like Jessica, poor, uneducated immigrants who are linked by spirit, if not by circumstance, to the 10-cents-a-dance girls of the 1940's.

Juan works as a janitor. The dollar he drops on the table after each dance makes him feel that he is worth something. ''These girls are nice,'' he said. ''They don't say no when you ask for a dance.''

There are dozens of these clubs on the edge of downtown, their neon signs hidden from view on streets the white middle class rarely travels.

And in answer to the inevitable question, a dollar usually buys only a dance. ''Men who are looking for prostitutes have other places to go,'' said Alfredo Santos, a taxi driver familiar with the clubs. ''Girls who are turning tricks don't waste time dancing.''

Las Chenchas, where Jessica spends her time, is dark and rustic looking inside, with a long bar, a large dance floor and a band that plays mostly Mexican cumbias or polkas. At El Mexico, pool tables take up most of the brightly lit room, with just a small area of bare concrete floor left for dancing. La Fiesta, largest and attracting the youngest crowd, has armed guards at the door.

Perhaps the only thing the clubs have in common, besides poor women who will dance for a dollar with downtrodden men, is that business is worse than it used to be. ''That immigration law is killing us,'' said Jerry Johnstone, owner of El Tipo, which is next door to La Fiesta.

Since the Government started prosecuting employers of illegal aliens, he said, many of his patrons have lost their jobs. ''The girls aren't making as much money, and we aren't making as much,'' he said.

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If there is anyone who can be called an expert on the clubs it is Mr. Santos, the taxi driver who is pursuing a master's degree in urban studies at Texas Southern University.

For eight years he has conducted his own surveys by talking with his passengers. ''I drive the women, and they talk about which bill they can pay now or which child is going to get to go to the doctor,'' he said. ''The men, they talk about how they spent too much money and how the money order they send back home is going to be smaller this month.''

Mr. Santos guesses that more than 500 women spend at least some of their evenings dancing for dollars. They are as young as 16 (though the drinking age is 21) and as old as 40.

There is an unofficial pecking order. The young girls have the luxury of looking down on the men. ''They're ugly and they smell, but they think they're macho,'' said Angel, 19.

''They think they can dance but they can't,'' said Jessica's younger sister, Yolanda. ''I only like them because they can pay.''

The men get to look down upon the older, less attractive women. ''They like the young ones,'' said Elva, 36. ''It makes them feel like big men if they can pick and choose.''

''I don't mind,'' she said, twirling her beer. ''What else would I do on a Saturday night?''

Some women do mind. They leave, and a new generation moves in.

''All I do is sit - I don't make any money,'' said Carmen, who is 40 and spent much of the night weeping in the ladies' room at El Tipo. She said she was thinking of bringing her daughter to the club this summer.

''She likes to dance and she thinks it will be fun,'' her mother said. ''I worry about her, but maybe she'll make money.''

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A version of this article appears in print on January 31, 1989, on Page A00014 of the National edition with the headline: Houston Journal; In the Dollar Dances, Sadness Leads. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe